


make space (if she don't mind)

by raincityruckus



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/F, F/M, Multi, Pining, bad ass babes with facial contusions, kicking ass, set at some point between s3 and s4, slowish burn, uhtred remains a heaux, why have a love triangle when you can have a threesome?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raincityruckus/pseuds/raincityruckus
Summary: “Then what are you thinking about the girl?” She asks, her fingertips soothing him with each gentle pass between his eyes.“Someone should probably teach her how to use that knife,” he says. His eyes are closed so he can only hear her answering huff of laughter, can't see the crooked edge of her smile. She taps the tip of his nose and he makes a show of snapping his teeth at her fingers “I was thinking that leaving what you know is hard, even when you know it’s time.”Æsa can see the path Fate sets before her, leading her away from a home that has nothing left for her. She just can't see where it ends and that's more frightening that leaving in the first place.
Relationships: Ealhswith/OFC, Ealhswith/Sihtric (The Last Kingdom), Ealhswith/Sihtric/OFC, Sihtric/OFC, Uhtred of Bebbanburg/Original Character(s)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 41





	1. one || Æsa

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all my enablers, especially [bellwetherr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellwetherr/pseuds/bellwetherr) and [bird_on_a_wire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bird_on_a_wire/pseuds/bird_on_a_wire) who have put up with my ceaseless whining about this this fic. It's really ~~daunting~~ exciting to be in a fandom with a thriving OC ecosystem, again. But I'm into it. 

Strong arms wrap around Æsa from behind, lifting her feet off the ground and robbing her of her leverage. She can feel the press of leather armor through her dress and the stench of sweat presses cloyingly close. Her shout is more snarl than language and she kicks out even knowing it is useless. Both hands come up to bite her fingers into the arms around her. Her nails find the bare backs of his hands and the soft parts of his arm and he curses but doesn’t let go. When the back of her head hammers back into his face he snarls, tucks his face into the crook of her neck. Blood wets her skin. 

“Get her fucking legs,” he snarls, her heels battering uselessly at his calves.

Æsa’s focus has been so narrow, so tight on the arms around her that she forgot entirely that he had a companion. She remembers just fine when he snatches up one ankle. He hauls her up, trying to catch her other ankle as she kicks wildly, prevents him from getting a good grip. His nails rake at her skin as she slips his grasp. The leg he does have he hauls up higher, hoisting her nearly horizontal between the men. 

Fine, she thinks, if he wants her legs he can have them. 

With the body behind her for leverage and his grip on her ankle as a counter balance Æsa can throw her weight back, take back some small control of her own movement. Enough at least to swing her free leg over the big man’s shoulders. Her calf hooks behind his neck and his surprise loosens his grip on her ankle, buys her what little time she needs to drag him off balance. He doesn’t expect her to draw him closer and he certainly doesn’t expect the kick she drives into his face with the foot he holds. His grip prevents her from kicking hard but the force makes it hard for him to hold onto her, his fingers slip off her skin. The next kick is harder. Both men are yelling but Æsa can hear nothing over the roar of her own pulse in her ears. With her leg behind his neck and her heel driving into the meat of his face he can’t shake her off. The man behind her tries his hardest to pull her free but all his pulling does is yank his friend further off balance. 

Æsa is not letting go. She reaches back, arm wrapping around the back of his neck, gripping her own wrist to hold tight. She was lucky to press this advantage. If they toss her to the ground she will be near helpless again and that puts a fight in her that she has not known. 

She feels the man’s nose crunch beneath the flat of her foot. Something else gives way under her kicks, something sags under his skin and he falters. His weight is a sudden drag against her leg around his neck. Æsa almost doesn’t release him in time, kicking him away so he doesn’t fall forward into her. The motion has her weight swinging back wildly without balance and the man holding her stumbles, nearly falls. Æsa doesn’t know what she was looking for as her hands fall, scrabbling against his hip and thigh for purchase. And then her fingers scrape the cool of a hilt. The knife is awkward to grab and with his tight grip around her ribs, crushing her lungs she didn’t have much room to move. 

She doesn’t need much. The blade is sharp and she drives it back into his thigh with all the force she has. All the force fear gives her. She has so little room to move she feels it pierce the fabric of her skirts. His hot blood spills against her thigh as she draws the blade out. Drives it back again. This time she cants her hips away, gives herself a little more room and _twists_ the knife. 

Æsa nearly loses the knife when he throws her to the ground, driving a kick to her ribs as she lands in a bone shuddering heap. The kick would break her ribs if she hadn’t hurt him so badly. It’s still enough to send her rolling. 

She should have thrown the knife to keep from cutting herself, as it is she feels the blade bite into her arm before it spills from her fingers, skittering ahead of her. As soon as she controls her own momentum she scrambles after it, seeing nothing but the brown leather hilt and what little protection it offers. 

Small stones crunch under heavy boots as Æsa’s fingers find the hilt again. She has the balls of her feet pressing into the ground but no time to come up off one knee before leather clad legs join the boots, a shadow falling over her.

Another Dane she catchs only a glimpse of before she moves - dark hair pulled back, striking eyes marked with a scar arching high over one. She slashes out wildly with the knife as she rises, her lips curl back in a snarl. Her slash is wide, uncontrolled and only by some miracle does she find flesh. 

A glancing slice opens across his palm as he holds his hands out to her, open and weaponless. His breath hisses out and his eyes narrow as he reels back, his weight rocking onto his heels. There is a twitch of movement that might be aborted retaliation. Æsa will never know because there is the sound of heavy footfalls behind her, and the man before her pulls his gaze off her and to whatever is behind her. 

More men but she doesn’t turn to see how many. At least the man she took the blade from wouldn’t be among those who can give chase. 

“It’s alright, you can put that down,” the man she cut reaches towards her again takes a half step and the point of her knife flashes as it cuts the air again. He isn’t close enough for her to cut him again but it stills him

“No, give her some space,” a voice behind her says, the words low and soft. It has the tone of someone talking to a spooked horse, not warriors. But his tone is all for her. He gives her a wide berth as he edges around her. Muscular and rough around the edge. The weight of his sword in his hand is like an extension of his body. Another limb rather than a tool. His eyes never leave her and she realizes they don’t match as the dappled light plays over the sharp planes of his face. Like the men before him, he stays far out of arm’s reach. Seeing how formidable both men are does nothing to quiet the panicked creature inside of her.

The sound of yet more footsteps makes that tension crawl up her spine and her knuckles creak with her grip on the knife. But the men who carefully edge around her is not what she expected. She isn’t sure what she _was_ expecting but a young monk certainly wasn’t any part of it. As he moves around her he releases his robes from where they were tucked up and lets them fall to skirt around his feet once more. He gives her a cautious look, head cocked to the side as if he is unraveling the knot of her. 

The last man of their group matches the first two. He is armed but his hands are empty, open to show he isn’t concealing anything. Where the first men were lean, this one is broad across the shoulders, his bare arms are thickly muscled and marked with pale scars. His shaggy hair and thick beard should make him more formidable, more bear than man. But there is light in his eyes, a crinkle in the corners that belies a smile. His gaze drops to the bloody edge of her knife and he flashes teeth in what might be a smile. 

“A rose with a thorn, Lord,” he says, his lilting accent touched with humor. 

“So it seems,” the first man says, tone wry. 

She isn’t naive or foolish enough to think they give her a wide berth because they’re afraid of her or her little blade. It is for her benefit, to put her at ease. She hasn’t decided what to think of that yet. The creature of fear and desperation that has driven her urgently forward since the others first stepped onto the road with her is certain it is all a trap.

The groans of the man she took the blade from have subsided, no longer a strange backdrop to this little standoff. She doesn’t know if he is dead or just unconscious but she can’t bring herself to turn and check. That would mean turning her back on these men before her and every one of them, monk included does not look like someone she should trifle with nor underestimate. 

The pale sun of early spring that filters through the trees casts the scene in a cheery light but Æsa feels no cheer. Blood drips from the knife in her hand and the sword held by the Dane with mismatched eyes. He is the only one with a weapon in his hand but he holds it loose beside him, casual and not like he is at all concerned about the little blade she levels at them. When he sees he gaze on his bloodied sword he jerks his head over her shoulder. She turns her body to try and keep them in view as she follows his gaze. 

The man whose face she kicked to a red mess is dead; A clean, deep wound of a sword point through his throat and into the dirt. It’s more merciful perhaps than leaving him choking on his own blood. Æsa isn’t sure she cares for the mercy. 

“We came to help,” the first man says. The one she cut. His voice low and steady. The kind of tone that says he’s used to being listened to. If he is their lord that is to be expected. When her brows draw together he cocks his head to the side and skates her a cajoling smile, “you screamed.”

“She snarled,” says the other Dane. 

Only two of them are Danes now that she can see them properly. Although barring the monk they all have something of the look she can see the Irishman wears a cross around his neck. The younger Dane wipes his blade clean before he slides it away. Æsa tracks the movement and doesn’t lower her knife though her shoulder aches from holding the position. 

“She also cut you, Lord,” the monk says. He tips his chin to where their lord has his hand cupped palm up to collect the blood spilling from him. Æsa should probably feel bad, the truth is they have offered her no violence. But her heart is still hammering in her ribs and her breath is coming sharp and shallow and she feels on the edge of the blade herself. 

“She is formidable,” the Lord says with a little shrug, that smile still in place. He hasn’t looked at his hand, his eyes on her face instead, “I’m Uhtred.” 

“She is feral,” the younger Dane says although it does not sound like an insult. Æsa rolls her shoulder, letting her hand fall beside her though she does not let go of the knife. She’s sure her fingers will be permanently curled in a claw from how tight her grip is.

“That one is Sihtric,” Lord Uhtred says. He sounds perfectly relaxed, as if he isn’t bleeding and no one is lying dead on the ground, “The monk is Osferth, and the big bastard is Finan.”

“Lady,” Finan says, his tone a musical lilt. 

“She is Æsa,” she says finally, surprised by the rasp of her own voice. She did not realize she had been shouting but her throat is raw and her voice is wrecked. She wets her lips, “and grateful if you came to help.”

“If,” snorts Uhtred. The Lord is Uhtred, a name that tickles something in her memory. 

Æsa stands just steps from two dead men she helped put in the ground and faces down four warriors. The fear and urgency that has kept her standing seems to drain away in the same rush it came to her. The skin at her temples tingles with it and her lungs feel suddenly hollow. The knife nearly slips from her numb hands and a gasp spills from her lips. 

Steadier fingers than hers are there. One hand sits flat between her shoulders and the other wraps around the fingers that hold her blade. He squeezes, tightening her grip on the hilt once more. Her head swims as though she has been holding her breath for a long time. 

“Easy,” he says, voice low and soft. Like he knows the panic that she feels to lose it’s meager protection, “It’s done.”


	2. two || Æsa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again thank you to my enablers who are endlessly encouraging both of my foolishness and Indian take out. Where would I be without you?

“Are you lootin’ corpses?” the Irishman asks, his shadow falling across her as she tries to push the body up to do just that. He is still warm under her hands but his limp weight is a sure sign that he’s dead. Even asleep a person holds more tension. 

“Would he have done less to me?” She asks from where she crouches, not looking up at him. Finan hunkers down on the other side of the body and curls one large hand into his cuirass, tugging the dead weight up with little strain.

Æsa touches the tip of her tongue to the center of her lips, brows drawing together. It’s not until she has retrieved his necklace and the coin purse at his hip that she looks up at the man helping her. The body flops back down with an unsettling bonelessness as he releases his grip and pushes up to his feet. Finan doesn’t look disapproving, just curious. Maybe amused. He offers her a hand up and she takes it, letting him haul her up to her feet. 

“How much of that is yours?” he asks,nodding to the still wet blood stain at her thigh where her skirt is torn. Æsa wonders at the wreck she must look, her face feels tender and she can’t tell if the ache in her jaw is from the punch or holding tension. 

The butter yellow of her apron dress is stained red with blood and marked with dirt, one broach torn clean off leaving the straps uneven. Her spill across the ground has pulled hair from her braids, leaves caught in the waves and her braids hanging lopsided. She can smell the copper of blood, taste it on the back of her throat. It itches on her lip and cheek where it smeared from her nose. 

“Of this?” she curls her finger into the cut in her skirt, feels for the matching one in her chemise and touches the skin of her thigh, “none, this is all his.”

“We are only interested in the wound, Lady,” Osferth offers softly, his hands behind his back. He’s soft spoken where the others are not, still when the others are not, but he isn’t diminished by them. A steady rock where the waves of them crash but don’t shake him. She wonders at him being so cautious to assure her a wound is the only reason he’d be interested in what’s under her skirts. But all men have mothers, wives. 

“There is no wound,” she says again, not arguing the Lady part, “It’s from when I gave him this.”

The toe of her shoe hits the leg wound, a wet sound making her stomach roll and her skin crawl. Æsa finds that though she had no hesitation in the moment, the aftermath of the killing does not sit as well. He would have done the same and worse to her, she tells herself. 

“Let's get them off the road,” Lord Uhtred suggests and Æsa is all too happy to let the Lord and his men do the heavy lifting of dragging the bodies somewhere more discreet. 

The “road” is little more than a dirt track hardly big enough for two horses to ride abreast. It’s fallen into disuse since Æsa was a child and the old bridge was replaced on the south road. If you’re traveling town to town it’s slower, with rougher terrain. But coming from the mill Æsa always takes this road, it saves her doubling back towards the south, shortening her journey by a half day if she’s walking as she usually is. She’d always thought the quiet, seldom used road was the safer. What thieves would travel a road with no one to rob? But she supposes the quiet little trail also made for a discrete get away.

And they had clearly needed a get away if the contents of their saddlebags are anything to go by.

She had known the men who attacked her were thieves, among whatever else they were. But she had not realized that they had already been successful thieves. She had thought to take what jewelry and coins they had and buy her family an extra few months of ease. But what she finds in their saddlebags is more than she could have hoped for. It’s the kind of money that could buy the family out of her brother’s debts. Æsa takes a shuddering breath and lets the bag fall closed. Lord Uhtred and his men have asked for nothing in return for their rescue attempt, perhaps because they did not get to do any rescuing. But money tempts everyone. 

She wets her lips and turns toward the sound of the men returning from their grisly task. They had left with bodies and returned with horses. She hadn’t heard horses but she had hardly noticed them come upon her until Uhtred was right on top of her, she’d been so focused on the task at hand. The horses at her back make a soft sound at recognizing their kin.

“We disposed of the bodies, why is you who looks so grim, Lady?” Finan asks, his tone light and playful. It is not matched in his eyes, they are sharp and cautious and Æsa realizes that he hides behind his good humor. 

How many ways can a man be dangerous?

“I don’t know how I’ll repay your assistance,” she says, which is close to honest. Uhtred huffs a laugh through his teeth and almost looks away. 

“There is nothing to repay,” he assures her, voice easy and almost dismissive. 

“You didn’t need help,” Sihtric points out, gesturing to the blood stained dirt even as he scuffs it with the heel of his boot, turns it over as best he can to obscure it. In short order they have made it seem like nothing untoward at all has happened on this patch of seldom used road. They’ve done this sort of thing before. 

“No one does anything for free,” Æsa shakes her head. There was a time she would have been naive enough to believe that, but it feels like a very long time ago. A different version of Æsa, “I don’t want to be in any more debt to anyone.”

She realizes she’s said too much when Uhtred’s chin lifts, his head cocking to one side. He doesn’t say anything but his body stills. There had been a restlessness to him, a drive forward but almost as one the four men grow still and quiet. Uhtred is watching her and his men are watching him. For her part Æsa doesn’t think she could stand still to save her life. She fidgets beside the horses and the poor horses fidget behind her, spooked by her tense energy. 

It’s not until his gaze slides off her, finds Finan that Æsa feels she can breathe again. The solid weight of the horse behind her as she leans back into its ribs is comforting. It chuffs softly and Æsa reaches out to scruf her short nails against its withers. 

“We have time,” Finan says, answering a question his lord never posed. It’s Osferth who smiles then, his gaze cast down and his hands clasped loosely behind his back. But his lips turn up in a smile, his head bobbing in a shallow nod. 

Æsa feels her brows draw together as she tries - and fails - to get a sense of these men. For all that they call him Lord and seem to look to him, Uhtred seems to take an awful lot of his queues from Finan. She thinks that strange but she hasn’t known that many warriors. Men who’ve fought, certainly. Soldiers too. This feels different though, when Skeggi had fought it was because the fjord had been raised, because he had a duty. Her husband had been a hundred other things before he was a soldier. And he’d never held a sword like an extension of his body. 

“We’re going the same way,” Uhtred says, his pale steady gaze flicking back to her and Æsa rather wishes it wouldn’t. The weight of it makes her want to squirm, “why don’t you let us accompany you.”

“And buy us a drink,” Finan chimes in, dropping his elbow onto Sihtric’s shoulder. The Dane shrugs him off, throwing an elbow Finan’s way when he just does it again. Osferth chides him, rolling his eyes and Finan spreads his hands helplessly “If she’s got her heart set on thanking us for moving some bodies who are we to turn down a pint?”

With their Lord’s mind seemingly made up the other three seem utterly relaxed, ready to follow the path he’s set before him. Although as far as she can tell the path is only to the pub, Æsa supposes their easy acceptance of it is reasonable. Uhtred’s gaze flicks back to her, waiting her for her say on the matter. It should be easy, just tell them she’ll buy them a round, two rounds, whatever and take the rest to pay off her family’s debt. 

She shifts her weight uneasily under Uhtred’s gaze, wondering if it’s wrong not to tell them how much she found. But she has earned it, her face still ached and she can taste the blood she paid in the back of her throat.

“And their silver? The horses?”

Uhtred steps towards her, the bandage wrapped around his hand a flash of white against all the black leather he wears. She’s never met men who look so comfortable in their armor. Skeggi had always chafed at it, tugging at it uneasily when he had to don it. Uhtred stops just within arms reach and though she doesn’t _think_ she has anything to fear from him her palm still itches for the weight of the little knife. She contents herself feeling it against her hip in the sheath Sihtric had wordlessly retrieved from the dead men before she’d even thought to rob them.

“Æsa,” he says, cajoling as he skates her that crooked smile, “we have no need of horses or of silver. This was your victory and what little help we offered isn’t worth much more than a drink.”

He’s intimidating, obviously dangerous, but something in his manner makes Æsa feel if not at ease, certainly not afraid of him. It reminds her of the way her father had talked to their animals when they’d been frightened by a storm. He is not harmless but she doesn’t think that he means her any harm. 

“I only got lucky,” Æsa says after a second, tipping her head up to meet Uhtred’s gaze where he looms over her. There’s no good reason Æsa should be standing here while her attackers are not. 

Her father had not been so settled into his life among the Saxons that he didn’t teach her at least a little to defend herself. But that had been years ago and it had seemed at the time little more than playful lessons she’d shared with her brother, wooden swords and rapped knuckles, tussling in a square of her father’s making until her mother had decided Atli was too old to play with her like that. It hadn’t been kicked in faces and a hot rush of blood against her thigh. She didn’t think what her father taught her had anything to do with what had happened on this forgotten road.

“Take the luck,” Uhtred says, his bandaged hand cupping her shoulder. His tone is light but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “It just takes being unlucky once and all the skill in the world won’t help you.”

“I think I could manage a round of drinks,” she says, not sure if prolonging their time together is a good idea. 

“See?” Finan says cheerfully, “an angel.”

“A rather bloody one,” the young monk says dryly but he shoots her a smile as he passes her. 

“The best ones are,” Finan says with certainty as Æsa swings herself up into the saddle. 

The horses will cut the trip in half, more than make up for all the time she’s lost. She doesn’t usually have the luxury of riding for her monthly trip. It feels odd, to have a horse this time because she killed it’s rider. But it feels a little right. Though she isn’t happy to have killed, she can’t summon the energy to feel badly for it either. She was attacked, she survived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. three || Sihtric

The blood that transferred from her fingers is still worked into the lines of Sihtric’s hand and will be until he stops to wash it properly.

  
Æsa had insisted that the blood turning the pale yellow skirt of her apron dress brown as it dries belonged to her attacker. But her dress is stained with dirt from her spill across the ground and flecked with more than just her attackers’ blood. The cut on her arm has turned the undyed linen of her sleeve ruddy and the torn fabric shows glimpses of the cut when she moves. She holds herself stiffly, like she’s sore and from what little he saw of the fight Sihtric knows she will only be worse off when the bruises set up. Her face is a mess. Blood has stained her upper lip, smeared across her face where she tried to wipe it with the hem of one sleeve and her cheek shows the first puffy, purpling signs of a nasty bruise. There are sluggishly bleeding cuts where one of the men’s rings broke the skin where he hit her.

Sihtric isn’t Uhtred. He doesn’t feel the same calling to help every waif he sees and embroil himself in every righteous fight he finds. Still a dark and angry thing inside him twists hard at the base of his lungs when he sees a bruise like that on a woman’s face. Any woman. He can’t look at it and not see the ghost of similar marks on Ealhswith when he’d visit her in Winchester.

Maybe it is that the memory of her having to return to the alehouse is too fresh. Maybe it’s the gnawing guilt that he failed to keep her safe though she accepted him on that promise alone when he had little else to offer her. Either way, he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have done the man choking on his own blood the mercy of a quick death.

It isn’t that Sihtric ever disagrees with Uhtred’s tendency to always help someone in need. Especially when that someone is a pretty young woman. It’s just that they seem to find themselves in this position more than their fair share. Æsa is exactly the sort that Uhtred can’t seem to keep himself from trying to help.

  
Blood on her face doesn’t keep her from being pretty. Her hair had been pulled back from her face in braids but they’ve mostly fallen out, victim to her fight. It leaves her hair a messy snarl of gold around her face that she’ll be picking leaves out of for a while. Under the blood and the dirt and the warning flash of teeth because she’s still half feral with the fight, under all that she’s a pretty girl who had the misfortune of looking like an easy target.  
She’s younger than him, old enough she probably has a man somewhere to worry about her, a couple kids to fuss over her face. Probably from the nearby village that’s more than half Dane. She looks the part, the apron dress, the lines of tattoos on the backs of her hands, lines and dots and curls that follow the shape of her bones.

  
Plus Sihtric doesn’t know that many Saxon girls that would kick a man’s face to bone pulp and blood.

Æsa had done most of her own rescuing before they’d even arrived. They made it over the crest of a low rise in the road too late to see her kick the one man’s face in but Sihtric had seen her stab the man holding her. The blade passed so close to her body he’d been sure that she’d driven it into her own thigh. What little he’d seen of the fight had been sloppy and desperate. Not practiced skill but a grim determination that her attackers would bleed for every inch they gained.

Sihtric has felt the same drive, has seen it in each of the men he travels with.

It makes him rather like her. Which is probably good because as soon as she says _any more debt_ she’s sealed her fate. Uhtred had decided to help her the moment they first heard her scream and Æsa had almost thwarted him by handling her own attackers. But that hint of more trouble to be had, some debt a pretty young woman is chafing under has given him a new target for his heroics.

All his good intentions, heroic or otherwise don’t put Æsa at ease. Uhtred’s charm doesn’t dispel her uncertainty about them the way it usually does. Maybe because they didn’t actually do any rescuing for her to be grateful for so she’s just traded one set of armed men she doesn’t know for another. What little they have done is enough that Æsa doesn’t seem afraid of them but she is at least wary. Still, she agrees to let them escort her to town.

If Sihtric’s suspicion is right - that the saddlebags contain more than she is letting on - Æsa would probably have rather paid them silver and kept to herself.

“Stubborn,” Osferth says, quietly so his voice doesn’t carry.

“Uhtred or the girl?” He asks. Osferth’s laugh is a soft huff.

Outside the town they stop long enough to clean the worst of the blood off Æsa. It’s not something they talk about just a good idea. When she makes a face as she presses at the cut on her arm Sihtric moves. Her skin is damp where she poured water from the river over her blood skin but the cut along the outer bone of her arm is in an odd place for her to see it.

“Who taught you to fight?” he asks, instead of saying something stupid about how she doesn’t need to worry or that she should relax.

“My father, sort of,” she says, nose wrinkling as he scrubs at her torn skin to clean the dirt away from the edge of her cut. It hurts but she doesn’t try to pull away from him.

The apron dress lays in her lap, wet where she’s scrubbed at the blood stain. It’s loosened somewhat but she’ll need more than a little river water if she wants to get rid of it entirely. She picks at it with her free hand as he wraps a clean piece of cloth around the cut on her arm.

“Sort of?” Sihtric asks.

“I don’t think he ever expected me to use any of it,” she pulls her gaze from the middle distance where she’s been scowling at the river, tips her face to watch him as he ties off the bandage. There’s nothing to be done for the tears or the cuts on her face but she looks a little more presentable.

“No father wants his daughter to use what he taught her in a fight,” Uhtred says from nearby. Æsa had tried to say they didn’t all need to stop just so she could clean up a little but Uhtred had decided they were going to escort her safely to town and that was all there was to be said about it. He’d made an excuse about watering the horses but for her part Æsa hadn’t argued very hard.

“You have a daughter?” she asks, pulling her sleeve back down over the bandage. The strap of her dress was torn where the broach ripped off and it takes a little finessing for her to get the broach reattached and the dress fastened.

It hangs a little crooked with uneven straps and she scowls down at it.

“I do,” Uhtred says.

“Will you teach her to fight?”

Uhtred’s smile is a sharp flash of white teeth.

“Hope she never uses it, too,” Finan says, his eyes dancing “the poor bastard wouldn’t stand a chance against that hellion.”

Uhtred shoves at Finan and Sihtric knows there’s no heat in it. Uhtred loves his children with a vicious sort of intensity. He might hope Stiorra never has cause to use what they teach her, but Uhtred would be proud to know that she’d handled herself as well as Æsa had.

“Lady?” Osferth’s voice is low and cautious, his hand hovering over her arm but not touching her. He’s better than the rest of them at managing her skittishness. When Æsa turns to him she doesn’t tense up, her hand doesn’t stray near her belt. Sihtric isn’t sure if it’s Osferth’s manner or the fact that he’s - at least ostensibly - a man of the cloth, “yours I think?”

A coil of beads lays in his palm, stray beads cluttered around it. They must have fallen when her broach was torn off, spilling them into the dirt and he’d gone through the trouble of finding them all. They’re not worth much, only a few have the shine of metal but Æsa bites her lip, not seeming to care that it’s already split as Osferth carefully tips them into her hand so she can tuck them away in a small pouch. Sihtric looks away when he realizes her eyes are shining too brightly.

“Oh,” Osferth says, uncomfortable, “I just thought you might want them.”

“Some of them are from my brother’s children. Thank you,” she says, her voice tight and more cheerful than he’s heard it. Forced cheer to cover the watery tone under it all, “I would have missed them.”

Æsa’s dress dries somewhat in the time it takes them to get to the tavern but she still gets looks. Sihtric can’t be sure it’s just her face or if the company isn’t something to do with it. For all that he knows they haven’t laid a hand on her he can imagine what it might look like from the outside. But all taverns in all towns are the same and no one asks any questions.

They end up at a table in the far corner. It gives them a wall to their backs and clear view of the door and the stairs that lead up to the second floor. Æsa doesn’t seem to notice the choice. She also doesn’t leave the saddle bags with them when she and Osferth go to get a couple jugs of ale. True to her word, Æsa is rewarding their help moving the bodies with a round of drinks.

“What brings you into town?” Uhtred asks when they’ve all started in on their first round. Æsa hunches forward over her drink, cupping both hands around the clay cup.

“I have business,” it’s cagey, a non answer, but Uhtred doesn’t push it. When pushed Æsa only gets more tight lipped. Instead Uhtred makes an interested hum and stretches his legs out under the table, leaning back against the wall behind him.

“We’re just passing through on our way home,” he says. His posture is lazy and relaxed but his eyes are sharp. Beside Æsa, Sihtric would have to turn to see what his Lord is watching. It makes the space between his shoulders ache not to know who is approaching but he trusts the others to watch his back when he can’t.

“Coccham,” Osferth says when Æsa makes a polite noise but doesn’t bother making conversation. She’s uneasy, not in the same way she’d been after she was attacked. But cagey and fidgety. Her fingers tap on the clay of the mug. There is a half circle of dark ink dots following the curve of her nail, “first thaw means it’ll be a mud pit.”

“Aye but our mud pit,” Finan says, reaching for the jug to refill his glass. He doesn’t actually look at what he’s doing but manages not to spill any. Æsa frowns then, watching them all watch something over her head. Sihtric twists when she does, finally able to see the man approaching them.

He’s a mountain, broad shouldered and thick as a tree trunk. He has the hard stare and grim set jaw of a man you wouldn’t want to tangle with but it doesn’t make Æsa nervous. Or at least no more uneasy than she already was. She was expecting him. His nose has been broken at least once and healed badly giving an already imposing man a rough look. Sihtric finishes his ale.

“Wuffa’s waiting,” the big man says, bored and monotone.

“Right. Safe travels,” Æsa says instead of goodbye, sliding another silver coin onto the table as she pushes up to follow her new escort. The saddle bags are heavy over her shoulder as she follows in his wake, letting his big body part the crowd for her.

They make no hurry up the stairs on the far side of the room and Æsa doesn’t look back at their table. She isn’t expecting or asking for their help. Uhtred drums his thumb on the table as they disappear through a curtain that blocks off a hallway. They can briefly make out the figure of another man standing watch just behind it. The table is quiet for a moment, a still spot in the bustle of a tavern.

“Interesting fellow,” Finan says into the quiet and Uhtred cracks a crooked smile.

“Can’t hurt to just see what she’s gotten herself into,” Uhtred says with a shrug, “we’re not expected in Coccham yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I have to remind myself that I do this shit for free and I don't need to stress about it


	4. four || Sihtric

“This and the horse, it’s more than we owe you,” Æsa’s voice is low and earnest.

Taking the sentry quietly and without killing him is harder and takes longer than it would just to kill the man. But since they’re not actually sure the man needs killing yet, Uhtred would probably prefer they avoid it. They miss the beginning of the conversation but there’s no missing the thick exhaustion creeping in around the edges of Aesa’s voice and Sihtric has to wonder how long this has gone on. He can’t see her face but he sees Finan’s jaw tighten. They don’t need to know what the debt is, none of this sits right. 

There is a low masculine roll of laughter. Two men. Only the big man who she had gone with and Wuffa. The soft tap of Finan’s thumb on the lip of his cup marks out the steady thump of Sihtric’s heart. 

“Who knows you brought all this?” the man asks and Finan’s finger stills on the lip of his cup. It’s not that any of them _want_ Æsa to have a crooked debtor. But it does give them the excuse to interfere on her behalf, “Would anyone really believe you could make this kind of payment?”

A tension drops out of Finan’s shoulders then, like it’s an invitation and Sihtric supposes it might as well be. 

“I would,” Finan drawls as he rounds the edge of the door frame, strolling into the room. 

Æsa’s pale grey eyes flash in surprise as she turns to see them filling the doorway. Plenty of the women Uhtred has taken it upon himself to rescue would have expected them to step in on her behalf, would have happily handed it over for him to deal with. But Æsa is wary of their arrival, not relieved. Her hand flexes, falling near her hip and that little knife. Her lip curls in annoyance when Sihtric gives her a shake of his head. 

He was right, there’s only two men. The mountain of muscle who collected her and an older man sitting on the other side of the table. Who must be Wuffa. The open saddlebag on the table is more full than Sihtric suspected even given her secretiveness about it and he’s not surprised she tried to buy them off back on the road. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Wuffa, pushing up to his feet. He’s older but he’s certainly not frail, his greying hair is thinning and the rest of him is not. He has the solid weight of a man who can man use of it, a cruel set to his mouth. He clearly wasn’t concerned about not being on Æsa’s level but armed men is another story. 

His question makes Æsa frown, her gaze flickering between Wuffa and Finan. Her mouth presses together in a tight line and when Sihtric meets her eyes he thinks he sees some of her wariness thaw. She is comforted at least a little that they are not acquainted with her debtor. Her weight rocks away from the table and toward the men behind her. Sihtric’s glad she at least thinks of them as the lesser of two evils. 

“Friends of hers,” his man says, shifting closer to Æsa. There’s two to two and Wuffa does not look like a man who has led an idle life. It looks like fairly even odds but Æsa would make a fine shield and Wuffa couldn’t be blamed if he’d rather tip the odds in his own favour. Finan lifts his cup to his lips, falsely relaxed as - like Sihtric - his hand finds the hilt of his sword, “they were sitting together in the pub.”

“Friends?” Wuffa’s brows draw together as he considers them. Sihtric wonders if he can see the trouble he has found. Something unpleasant and pleased slides behind Wuffa’s expression and his dark eyes narrow, “Now Æsa, what kind of friends could help you make a payment like this?”

His man laughs, a low, mean, male sound that makes a muscle in Sihtric’s jaw tick. He’s heard that insinuation before, heard that nasty laugh. He finds he doesn’t like it any better when the woman it’s directed at isn’t his wife.

“At least her poor husband isn’t here to see this,” his man grins, dismissing the threat posed by them once he thinks he has their measure. Finan’s weight shifts casually but Sihtric recognizes it for what it is; he is all too ready to teach this man what a mistake that is. Aesa’s split lip curls back and she bares her teeth.

Wuffa doesn’t even notice.

“Are you buying her debt?” Wuffa asks, tipping his chin to them over her head. His eyes are bright, calculating and Sihtric has the unfortunate impression that he isn’t as stupid as they might have hopped, “She never let _me_ work it off in trade but I’m not a pretty boy Dane am I?”

“I am out of patience for this,” Æsa snaps, the heel of her hand punctuating her words with a slap of the table. Shock widens her eyes at her own outburst. Finan who had opened his mouth to interject shuts it with a snap. There is a weighty silence as the attention falls back onto Æsa. 

From the moment Finan had spoken up she had become the least important thing in the room to Wuffa and his man, the attention moving to the men carrying swords. It had been a question of just how much violence would be enacted and not actually about the young woman at the center of it all. To Wuffa they had been first a threat and then business potential and trumped Aesa. The angry growl in her voice dispels all that. Wuffa’s eyes narrow and Sihtric lets the breath out of his lungs slowly, stilling himself. 

“I have had a long day, Wuffa,” Æsa says, biting the words out as she pushes through her initial shock. Her hands spread on the wood of the table and she leans towards him. There is blood on her hand, stains still on her dress and washing the blood from her face has only succeeded in making the cuts and bruises more obvious. Even her words come out round and soft like she’s having trouble talking around her split lip, “take your Gods forsaken payment and let's be rid of each other.”

Finan rocks his head to the side. If Æsa keeps this up Uhtred’s going to be insufferable for all their thwarted heroics. Wuffa’s man drops his hand heavily and obviously to the hilt of his sword and it’s the only move any of them make. Sihtric wants to roll his eyes. Wuffa should hire more interesting muscle.

For a long moment Wuffa just takes in the young woman in front of him, the silver she is offering him spilled between them on the table.

“Did you ugly up her face?” Wuffa asks, his gaze skipping off Æsa to Finan behind her, to Sihtric when Finan’s face doesn’t shift from his pleasant impassive mask. His lip curls in disgust at the suggestion.

“She killed the men who did that to her face,” Sihtric says, not having planned to say anything until it was already on his lips. Æsa glances over her shoulder at him, a furrow between her brows more confusion than anger. Sihtric doesn’t have a good answer for her so he just lifts his shoulder in a shrug. 

“Like she said, long day,” Finan drawls, his tone easy and cheerful as ever. 

“This isn’t like you,” Wuffa tells Æsa, leaning towards her so he is mirroring her on the table, bracing his weight on his hands. Her golden hair falls forward over her shoulder when she turns to meet his gaze. There’s still a broken shard of leaf in it and for a stupid minute Sihtric thinks he should pluck it out.

“I’m just trying to pay a debt,” she says. She sounds tired. 

“And your armed friends?” 

“Just here to make sure the payment is received without any problems,” Finan says, tone light. Sihtric shifts so he is leaning in the door jam, one hand thumbing the hilt of his sword. 

“You get more than you’re owed,” Æsa says quietly, “just give me my counterfoil and we can forget about each other.”

“Forget you? When you’ve just become interesting?” he asks, clicking his tongue against his teeth and like an idiot Wuffa’s man decides it would be a good idea to try and grab Æsa’s arm. 

Sihtric doesn’t know if the big man thought that controlling Æsa would make him and Finan back down or if he’s just been hit in the head too many times. All he knows is that sense says this should have been an easy exchange, the man could have just accepted the money and be done with it. But it’s never easy is it.

A number of things happen at once.

Wuffa smiles, his hand curling into the strap of the saddlebag to take possession of the silver. Sihtric’s hand find’s Æsa’s hip when she reaches out to snatch back the bag. He guides her back into his chest, turning her with his body so his naked blade is between her and Wuffa. Her lips curl back in a frustrated snarl. It’s Finan who steps before Wuffa’s man. He tosses the clay cup casually at the other man, an easy underhanded flip that the man catches on instinct. Leaving his hands occupied when Finan hammers one large fist into the man’s face. It doesn’t knock him down but it does send a hot gush of blood spilling from his nose and drives him back a few stumbling steps. 

“I did say we were making sure the payment was received without problems,” Finan says, glancing back at Sihtric as if he’s looking for confirmation. 

“I definitely heard that,” Æsa says, her voice a little breathy and tight. Sihtric has to wonder how many fights she’s been in before now. Two in a day is a lot even for them. Wuffa opens his mouth as if to argue and then his gaze flicks to his man clutching his face and bleeding. It’s when he looks at the sword in Sihtric’s hand that he offers an easy smile as if nothing whatsoever is wrong. 

“Why don’t I get your counterfoil,” he says with false cheer. 

“Good idea,” Æsa agrees. 

After that it’s only a matter of moments before Wuffa has carved the tally notches in a length of wood, their names carved into the surface before he splits it for Æsa. Her white knuckle grip on her half of the stick rivals the grip she’d had on the knife. She lets Sihtric pull her back, not turning his back on Wuffa or his man until they’re out in the hall with Finan behind them. Her eyes go wide as they step over the unconscious form of Wuffa’s sentry but she doesn’t stop them as they all but hustle her back into the busy main room of the pub. 

“What now?” Osferth asks, taking in their obvious hurry. 

“I think we best be seeing Æsa home now,” Finan says, clapping Osferth on the shoulder as he exchanges a grin with Uhtred “we might have somewhat worn out our welcome.”

“That should have been easy,” Æsa says as she lets Sihtric usher her back to the stable. Sihtric only hums in agreement. There’s time to despair over how stupidity and greed can complicate the simplest of exchanges.

True to her word she leaves one of the would-be-thieves' horses for Wuffa towards her debt. After what he tried to pull Sihtric wouldn’t have. 

“It’s never easy as it should be,” Finan assures her and this time she lets Sihtric brace her as she pulls herself up into the saddle, “greedy men can’t see sense when there’s money to be had.”

“You weren’t gone long enough to have gotten into more trouble,” Osferth argues but he looks a little more jealous than despairing. 

“Greedy men?” Uhtred asks although he hasn’t argued at being rushed away from his ale or the pub. He might be their Lord but most of the time he has the sense to follow Finan’s lead when it’s necessary. 

“Æsa had a debt,” Sihtric says, glancing back at the girl in question. 

She still looks a little startled. The stick which denotes just how much she paid Wuffa is still clutched tightly in her hand, her arm curled in against her stomach to hold it closer still. She huffs out a shaky breath and gives a shakier smile. It’s the first real smile he’s seen since they found her wild eyed and covered in blood. 

“Had? We missed all the fun, Lord,” Osferth says with a shake of his head and Uhtred gives a wry chuckle. 

“Thank you,” she says, twisting in her saddle so she looks at all of them, “now I really don’t know how to repay you.”

“Another pint would do it,” Uhtred says, his tone light and easy but his face earnest. It’s the same look that has made so many other hapless maidens trust him implicitly. 

“Alright,” she says,”alright another pint. And maybe dinner.”

“He didn’t do anything,” Finan argues over the clatter of hoofs out of the stable yard. Æsa husks out a laugh that verges close to hysterical.

All in all it’s a good outcome. Wuffa could have had more muscle waiting, Aesa could have been more shell shocked or less trusting. A little blood shed and a hasty retreat is better than things might have gone. If nothing else Finan will be happy about dinner.


	5. five || Æsa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway this is for [pokeasleepingsmaug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pokeasleepingsmaug) who leaves the bestest reviews and singlehandedly reawakened my Æsa love. 
> 
> And Uhtred is a heaux. It is known.

It isn’t that Æsa specifically trusts them all of a sudden. 

It’s more like they feel like they are part of this. Whatever _this_ actually is. Æsa’s gone a long time living a relatively unexciting life. Her hardships have been unremarkable, expected - aside from her inherited debt. Now in just one day she’s killed, paid her debt, and very nearly found herself in her second fight. And has a Lord and his warriors following her home like foundlings. 

But they’ve helped her and offered her no harm, been with her since very nearly the beginning. It’s hard not to feel some connection to them. So she invites them home with her because a hot meal is the least she can offer. Or maybe just because everything has happened so fast and her head is still spinning with it. If nothing feels quite real anway. 

“I can be charming,” Uhtred says when Æsa asks that they let her do the talking. She can hear the smile in his voice. She’s sure if she looked at him his eyes would be dancing and she has no doubt that his charm has worked well for him before. 

“It’s uncanny, really,” Finan says from behind them and Æsa rolls her eyes. Even after the day she’s had there is an ease about them that is contagious, “with women anyway. Doesn’t work so well on jealous husbands and angry fathers.”

It’s well dark when they finally reach home and Æsa’s body had started to ache in earnest. The bumps and scrapes that urgency had numbed her to have set in and wont be ignored. Light spills from the open door, cheery in the blue black of the night with the hulking shape of the mill a dark smudge behind the small home. Cyneburh is silhouetted in the doorway, her frame tight with tension and Æsa can’t help but feel guilty.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says by way of greeting, for lack of anything better to say. She doesn’t know where to begin with everything that has happened to day, with everything she’s done. Just seeing home makes her achingly tired. 

“Æsa?” Cyneburh’s voice is heady with relief and when she moves towards them Æsa catches the flash of light on the blade held half hidden in the fall of her skirts. Æsa feels that stab of guilt again for worrying her, “what’s this?”

“They’re friends,” she says earnestly, sliding from the horse more quickly than her sore body wants. The jar of her feet hitting the packed earth shudders up her legs and reminds her of how long her day has been. Finan’s hand flat against her spine catches her when she sways, bumping against his chest until she gets her feet under her. 

Just like when they first found her, they hang back now. Giving her and Cyneburh at least the illusion of privacy. They’ve dismounted but they don’t break the ring of light cast by the open door. Cyneburh’s hug is tight, tighter than Æsa’s protesting ribs appreciate but she loops her arms around her anyway and squeezes her back. It’s not until she pulls back that she really looks at Æsa’s face, makes a soft gasp of shock at the purpling bruises and scabbed cuts which probably look much worse in the half light through the open door. 

“They didn’t do this,” Æsa says quickly when Cyneburh’s gaze jumps from her to the men behind still behind her, “it’s complicated.”

“Wuffa?” Cyneburh asks, her hair a golden glow where the light catches it. They both have the same medium gold hair, eyes nearly the same shade. They look enough alike that they could be sisters in truth. 

“Not Wuffa,” Æsa sighs. She wants to go inside. She wants to change into something not stained in blood and run a comb through her hair. Instead she brandishes the counterfoil between them, “we don’t have to deal with him ever again.”

Cyneburh takes the counterfoil carefully, fingers moving gently across the notched marks that denote Æsa’s final, unbelievable payment. She has to have a hundred questions since she was the one who had counted the payment Æsa was supposed to make today. But she doesn’t ask any of them, instead she touches the bruise on Æsa’s cheek and looks past her to the men lingering in the yard.

“You might as well come in,” she says beckoning them forward with a wave of her hand, “Ǫzurr will take the horses.”

As if released from a geas at the mention of his name, her nephew materializes from where he must have been watching from in the house. His hair is sticking up at all angles and he casts a wondering look at her face as he passes but doesn’t stop to ask her about it. He holds himself stiffly, his shoulders very straight and fighting her smile makes Æsa’s split lip ache. He’s old enough that he wouldn’t appreciate that she finds it sweet he’s trying to impress the warriors. 

“This is Cyneburh,” Æsa says with a tip of her chin, “She married my fool brother. This is her home.”

“Your home,” Cyneburh says with a roll of her eyes as she gives the men before her a critical look. She might trust Æsa when she says that these aren’t the men who hurt her but she’s no fool. She can see the armor, the way they carry themselves with the casual confidence of fighting men. Cyneburh makes a noise that Æsa thinks might be approval. 

“Cyne, this is Lord Uhtred and his” Æsa flounders, trying to put words to what she’s seen and coming up short, “his men.”

“Lord?” her sister in law says, not quite disbelieving and Æsa just shrugs. 

“Of Bebbanburg,” he says, his lips curving in an easy smile that warms his light eyes and softens the sharp lines of his face. Jealous husbands and angry fathers indeed. 

“More recently of Coccham,” Finan chimes in helpfully, cutting himself short when Cyneburh throws up one hand to still them all. 

“Æsa you look a fright and I’m sure you’re all hungry. The tale can wait. Go change into something clean,” she orders, taking the same tone she uses when she’s wrangling her children, “your friends and I will have something hot waiting for you when you are cleaner.”

Æsa’s shoulders sag in relief and she squeezes Cyneburh’s wrist as she passes her into the warmly lit first floor. She steals one of the candles from the table as she passes, the smell of dinner filling the first floor and making her stomach grumble. Cyneburh sleeps in the back bedroom on the first floor while Æsa and the children have split the loft into two rooms and Æsa makes her way up the stairs to her room. 

There’s already a flickering candle lighting the room, clasped tightly in her niece’s hands. The girl sits on the foot of Æsa’s bed, feet swinging. She’s in the last years of being a little girl and she hasn’t grown into her coltish limbs yet. Atli was the same when he and Æsa were young. Her hair falls in one thick braid over her shoulder and she narrows her eyes at Æsa, taking her in. 

Æsa lets her watch as she pulls off her blood stained clothes and changes into something clean. She really should have worn the earthy red apron dress that morning, it would have hidden the blood so much better. Her broach pin has bent a little and it sits loose but she can fix that, it’s nothing a good knock with a hammer won’t mend.

“Did those men hurt you?” Goda asks finally, when Æsa is twisting her hair into a thick rope of a braid. Her forearm aches where she cut it and her hands are sore with times she must have hit her attackers and doesn’t even remember, a more complicated braid is out of the question for the time being. 

“No,” she wonders how many times she’ll be asked that. Æsa understands it, she’s never been in a fight in her life and now she arrives battered with men who look very at home with violence, “they helped me.”

“Who hurt you?” she asks and Æsa ties off the end of her braid before moving to sit on the edge of the bed with Goda. Her niece rests her head on her shoulder.

“Bad men,” she says, “thieves.”

She didn’t even know their names and she left their bodies to rot on the forest floor. Æsa reminds herself that they would have done the same and worse to her but can’t help being glad she doesn’t know their names.

“What happened to them?” Goda’s head shifts and she looks up at Æsa. In the dim light she looks an awful lot like her father and she looks very young. The idea of Goda ever being in that position makes Æsa want to wrap her in a blanket and lock her away from the world for the rest of her life. 

“I killed them,” it’s the truth but it perhaps isn’t the right thing to say to her young niece. Still, Æsa would rather be honest than careful. However she might feel about taking a life in the aftermath, if Goda finds herself with the same choice to make, Æsa wants her to do whatever she has to in order to walk away from it. 

“Good.” Goda hops off the bed, face untroubled by her aunt’s confession and Æsa follows her. If only everything was as simple for her as it was for Goda.

Cyneburh has hot food on the table and four hungry men waiting impatiently for Æsa to reappear. Osferth shifts farther over on the bench when Goda wedges herself in between him and Æsa. It’s a tight fit, more people than their table has seen in a long while but it’s not unpleasant. If Cyneburh has any reservations about serving a real Lord the same simple fare she and her family eat she doesn’t show it. 

“I think you have a story to tell,” Cyneburh says as they pass down bowls of thick stew and crusty bread. It’s a few days old and they won’t sell it at the bakery now but it’s perfect to soak up the stew. 

They’re sitting close enough that Sihtric jostles her when he tears a hunk off the bread and he goes starkly still beside her, concern on his face. He’s worried he hit her sore ribs she realizes. They’ve all been in enough fights of their own that they probably have a sense of her injuries without having had to inspect them. It’s a jarring thought and Æsa reevaluates them, her eyes catching on places their armor has been repaired over the years. She can hardly believe she walked away from one fight much less a lifetime of them. 

“Did they have a sword?” Ǫzurr asks, breathless and excited as only boy his age can be. 

“No they didn’t have swords,” Æsa says. 

“Wuffa’s man did,” Sihtric says beside her, his voice low and Æsa looks up at him. He just shrugs, a smile on his lips “It’s what my son would want to know too.”

It’s not what she expected him to say and she isn’t sure how she feels about it. She knows they have lives they’ll be returning to, that her ordeal is just one day in their lives. Somehow she never thought about any of them as men who have homes and families. But they’re not just apparitions drawn to her by her violence.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Æsa says and starts properly at the beginning, alone on a little used road. 

Something about these four men makes the story sound exciting and even funny instead of frightening. Finan knows just when to interject and Uhtred really is too charming for his own good, getting Cyneburh to blush under the weight of his attention as they help her tell her story. Even Osferth has a dry, mean sense of humor especially at the expense of his friends. Ǫzurr is nearly beside himself with excitement at the retelling and by the end it doesn’t feel so much like a weight hanging over her. 

Æsa’s body still hurts and she’s so tired she’s not sure she’ll make it up the stairs again. But she’s fed and she’s warm and she’ll sleep safe at home tonight. A home that no longer has her brother’s gambling debt hanging over it. 

“Forgive me,” Uhtred says when Ǫzurr and Goda have been sent reluctantly to bed. The fire has burned low and been stoked, only a few candles lit to give them light. Cyneburh’s eyes narrow. That’s what people say before they say something they need forgiving for, “but your children’s father? Your husbands?”

Cyneburh makes a low hum in her throat and leans back in her chair, tapping her thumb against the edge of the worn table. Æsa didn’t always live here with her sister in law and the children. Even after Atli and Skeggi were gone she’d lived in the little cottage she and Skeggi had shared closer to town. But they rented it now, needed the help to pay Wuffa’s due.The town all knows their story, no secrets from neighbours after all and they’ve never really had to explain it.

“My Atli made bad choices,” Cyneburh says, giving Æsa an apologetic look. But Æsa knew her brother and has no illusions “he liked to drink and he liked the pub. He found himself in debt and on the bad end of a beating he just never recovered from.”

“Hard on your children,” Finan says sympathetically and there is something dark in their faces. It’s not the legacy you want to leave for your son, not how you want him to remember you. Æsa’s not sure Atli ever had it in him to leave a warrior’s legacy but it didn’t need to be quite so grim. 

“They have better memories of him,” Cyneburh shrugs, passing her cup back and forth between her hands. Atli’s been dead a long time and Æsa wonders how much of him Goda and Ǫzurr even remember. 

Æsa covers her fingers with her hand, giving a soft squeeze of reassurance. Technically she and Cyneburh aren’t really family anymore, connected through the children but they don’t owe each other anything. That doesn’t change anything between them. 

“My husband was called to fight a battle for a Saxon king and never came home,” Æsa says, drawing attention away from Cyneburh. At least Skeggi died fighting, had his chance to die a good death and join the Gods.It makes it all a little less tragic.

“My wife is gone,” Uhtred says, his gaze on the middle distance and his voice soft. Like he’s offering them something in return. He doesn’t say dead though that much is clear. It’s like he can’t say it or it’ll be too true.

“He has shit luck with women,” Finan says, breaking the somber mood that has sunk it’s claws into them with his light tone. He braces his arms on the table, leaning forward and gesturing with his wooden cup. “One’s a nun now.”

“One cursed him,” Osferth says, counting them on his fingers as his face twists as if he’s deep in thought, “and one wants to kill him.” 

“Only one?” Cyneburh asks mildly and a lazy smile curls on Uhtred’s mouth. Her eyebrows lift and she cocks her head to the side, gaze dropping to his lips for just just a moment. Long enough for Æsa to see it and quickly avert her gaze. 

She catches Finan’s and he winks at her. 

“My wife is perfect,” Sihtric says and Cyneburh laughs, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table. He smiles, sharp and full of teeth as he leans back in his chair, his legs sprawled before him, “and Osferth’s a virgin.”

“I’m not a virgin,” the younger man says, which is as expected. Though there isn’t the bluster of protest that Æsa might expect if he really was a virgin. Just a begrudging acceptance of his friends teasing. 

Æsa wasn’t supposed to like them so much. It feels so strange that less than a day has passed since she met them. Since she cut Uhtred in her fear. They’ve protected her, tended her wounds when she let them, doled out violence on her behalf, met her family. That morning feels both a year ago and only moments ago and it makes her head swim to think about it. Fleeing the mess with Wuffa she hadn’t thought about bringing them home. She’d only thought about leaving and getting home safely. They had seen her safe so far it had been an easy choice to stick with them. 

But the table is intimate and warm and they make her feel lighter. Lighter than she has in a long time, not just since her luck went sideways that morning. 

Cyneburh finds her in the kitchen garden after she gets the men settled in Æsa’s room. Æsa and Cyneburh will share for the night despite the men’s protests that they could sleep in the main room. It’s no hardship to share with her sister in law and she can see that it’s a matter of pride for Cyneburh not to let a lord sleep on her floor. It’s too cloudy to see the moon but she can see a sprinkling of stars through gaps in the clouds. It’s too cold to be out without a cloak but the chill feels nice on her bruised face and she needs the moment of quiet and solitude. 

“What is it?” Cyneburh asks, draping half her cloak over Æsa’s shoulders.

“I think it’s time for me to go,” Æsa says quietly. She lets herself soak in the warmth of the other woman’s body as they stand in the small garden. The children are old enough that they can help their mother and she knows full well that Osric who works the mill for them has made his intentions clear to Cyneburh. 

Her sister in law goes stiff beside her, unhappy. 

“This is your home,” she says softly and with feeling.

“It is, and we finally are free of that damned debt,” Æsa says, shaking her head. She loves her brother, misses him, but she doesn’t forgive him for that. She slips her arm around Cyneburh’s waist as they share the warmth of her cloak, “Skuld is putting a path before me.”

“And it leads away from home?” Cyneburh asks, “To where?”

“I don’t know yet but the most frightening part is leaving.”

Æsa has spent her whole life at the mill, in her small town. She knows these woods, these people as if they are a part of her but Æsa doesn’t feel like she’s that person any more. She’s not sure if it’s killing, or forcing Wuffa to listen to her, or just being free of the debt. But she’s not the Æsa who left their home that morning and she can’t stay still.

“I’ll leave tomorrow, see if they’ll let me travel with them for a while,” she says with a shrug, putting the pieces together as they come to her. 

“We will miss you,” Cyneburh says, turning to face her and her lips are twisted into a tight line “but if it’s your last night, that’s all the more reason for you to sleep with the children.”

It takes Æsa a moment to put together what Cyneburh is saying and when she does her eyes go wide, her mouth falling open. Uhtred of Bebbanburg should come with a warning. Although she supposes that Finan did try. Cyneburh tips her chin up a little defiantly like she expects Æsa to chastise her. 

“What about Osric?” Æsa asks but she can’t keep the smile from her mouth even when it makes her split lip ache. 

“Osric isn’t leaving tomorrow, _Lord_ Uhtred is,” she says, remarkably prim given the circumstances. 

“Good for you,” Æsa laughs and shakes her head. 

If Cyneburh is embarrassed to find Sihtric in the door way as she turns to go back inside she doesn’t let it show. Slipping passed him into the dimly lit main room and her bedroom beyond. Like Æsa, Sihtric watches her disappear behind her door and they hear the soft lift of voices before he steps out into the garden with her. He shakes his head and looks up at her, his face hidden in shadow. 

“He’s a menace,” Æsa says and Sihtric only laughs.


End file.
